Field Guides · The Camp Log

Easy Campfire Desserts (The Ones Our Kids Beg For)

Dessert is where camping earns its magic — it's the part the kids remember years later, and almost none of it takes any real skill. Here's our running list of easy campfire desserts, split by how you cook them: the ones that bake in a Dutch oven, and the ones that go right on the coals in foil. A campfire popcorn popper handles movie-night snacking; pie irons turn a few of these into sealed mountain pies. Pick one, or work your way down the list over a summer.

The Dutch oven desserts

A foil-lined Dutch oven turns out bakery-level desserts with almost no effort — line it with a foil sling and the whole thing lifts out clean.

Peach Dump Cake — canned peaches, a box of cake mix, a stick of butter. The one rule: don't stir it. The easiest dessert there is.
Monkey Bread — sticky cinnamon-sugar pull-apart bread from canned biscuits. The kids build it.
Cinnamon Rolls — two cans of refrigerated rolls and the whole site smells like a bakery. Breakfast or dessert.
Apple Crisp — cinnamon apples under a buttery oat topping. Apple pie with no pie.

The foil-and-coals desserts

No Dutch oven? These cook right on the coals in foil — build-your-own and nearly impossible to ruin.

Banana Boats — a banana split open, stuffed with chocolate and marshmallows, warmed in foil. The most kid-proof dessert in camping.
Baked Apples — a cored apple full of butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon, wrapped and tucked in the coals.
S'mores — you already know s'mores. We've just got the two small tips that take them from fine to right.

(Apple crisp does a foil-packet version too, so it lives happily in both camps.)

The only rules that matter

Coals, not flames — flames scorch the outside before the inside is done. A foil sling for anything sticky in the Dutch oven. And the permission to let it get a little dark: a crispy, caramelized bottom is the best bite, not a mistake.

Common questions

What's the easiest campfire dessert?

Banana boats or a dump cake. Banana boats take zero skill — stuff a banana with chocolate and marshmallows, wrap it in foil, warm it on the coals. The dump cake is three ingredients you don't even stir.

Dutch oven or foil for camp desserts?

Dutch oven for cakes and breads — dump cake, monkey bread, cinnamon rolls, apple crisp. Foil on the coals for fruit — banana boats, baked apples. Apple crisp happily does both.

Can kids make campfire desserts?

That's the whole point. Building banana boats, shaking biscuit pieces in a bag of cinnamon-sugar, and toasting marshmallows are the best kid jobs at camp — just keep them clear of the coals themselves.

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